Ascend: Hand of Kul

Ascend: Hand of Kul

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Guide : Becoming Badass in Ascend 101
By LoynisPrayerTips
This guide will help you do anything in Ascend, Better. Remain above a certain soul count, with great upgraded (and not broken!) gear and such. Also some tips and tricks. <WIP>
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Starting Out + How to deal with bosses
As you start out, you will be given a choice of Three Gods. Light, Evil and Void or at least thats how I call them ^^.

You could potentially pick whichever you choose but the most effective one to choose is Void, because of the Seekers spell and Frost Bolt. Seekers are really effective at what they do, which is dealing damage, and once you upgrade them sufficiently, you will feel a relief when they come off cooldown during a boss fight. They deal enough damage for you to run around an Ogre and spam them if your gear is broken or else, but with the strategy I will explain to you, there will be a much faster way of getting rid of those pesky bosses.

Step 1 : Start the fight with seekers, shortly after use Frost bolt and charge at the boss, following with 2 (OR 1 if the boss was quite far from you once you launched the frost bolt and charged) strong attacks. Quickly dodge away afterwards.

Step 2 : Rinse and repeat until the boss this dead. While this might take you some time with bad gear, it is the way to go, you could try to sneak in a normal attack after a strong one if you do not feel comfortable with dealing another strong attack but this takes practice.

TIP : Use a controller, it is far simpler to do crazy maneuvers with a gamepad. This obviously might be a problem to people without one, but I'm sure you can get used to keyboard aswell.

Gear + Ascending
As you may have noticed people whine about not having enough souls and being stuck on bosses, and then thats what makes the game pay 2 win. I believe otherwise.
Here is a few tips :

1. Do not repair you gear early on.
This is because you will find plenthora of gear if you enter every single dungeon possible.

2. Do not upgrade your gear early on.
As above, you will quickly find upgrades to your current gear. What I suggest doing is..

3. Use Magic attack enhancing runes.
And any other runes but this is the most important, allowing you to "dance around the boss" with minimal health and finish him off using the Seekers.

4. Upgrade your spells.
Seekers that is, if you were following the guide. The costs of upgrading the spells early is a steal, a damage increase (first tier) will cost you about 30 souls.

5. Later in the game, try and use gear with open rune slots.
This is because you can unbelieveably outrun your current level gear with runs that provide even the slight 3% damage increase. Also do not get fooled by gear that "is better" than your current, but has a runeslot with a rune in it. Wait for something Actually better.

6. The second time you Ascend is the time the game lets you.
Whenever you have the possibility to Ascend, do so. This is because you can get powerful runes and ascending in tougher areas causes the monsters to decrease in level as well. This makes your "Pig sticker" turn into a weapon of mass destruction.

7. When you Ascend...
Pick the God of Light until you get Lighting Shield spell, this is after the first Apex fight, Or until Chain lightning but thats optional. This is because Lighting Shield is an Amazing spell and will let you do those Rambo charges more effectively (By stunning the Boss for a short while) and by giving you a boost to Armor and Movement Speed, and Chain Lighting is just a good spell to use whenever you have lots of enemies in the room. After you get those spells change to the Evil God on your next Ascending so you can get Meteor Shower, which is just a really powerful AoE spell.
General Help + Mid-Game Boss Help (Spoilers)
In the first "Act" there isn't much of danger to you per say, there is just alot of learning, of how the mobs and bosses work. In Act 2 (Forest Areas) you will be forced to face a mini-boss, just like the smaller Ogres, the ones without On-Screen healthbars.



Thorn-Bear Mini-Boss

Intro : This is a mini-boss, a bear with thorns, here are some steps to defeating him :

Warning : Usually has mobs guarding it

1. Use Seekers, dash to him, then do a strong attack, and dash away. This is done if you are engaging him.

2. If you are currently in combat with it, do a normal attack, dash away and use Seekers. Repeat this until the bear stands up (Charges a strong attack). Warning : there are 3 strong attacks that follow.

3. Use Frost Bolt, charge to it, do a strong attack once or twice and dash away.

4. If you have Lightning armor, before executing step 3 use it, if you do not, then keep on doing steps 2 and 3



Hagaz the Killer

Warning : Always has mobs guarding it + Has a special fiery Javelin which is more dangerous than normal (Not mentioned in the guide, simple dodging required)

Tip : Try utilizing cover if possible.

Intro : This is a boss, A giant ogre with Javelins on his back, it is a stronger version of the Ogre boss you've met previously, and is much more dangerous and cannot be zerg rushed. :(

1. Use Seekers, charge him and strong attack once then dash away.

2. Dodge any incoming javelins

3. Use Frost Bolt, charge, strong attack once and dash away. (Utilize Lightning if you have it)

4. Dodge any incoming javelins

5. Rinse and repeat until Frenzy. Frenzy is initiated with Hagaz performing an underground burrow, and then coming back with 4 Witch Doctors

6. Lure away the Witch Doctors and fight them 1 by 1 far away from Hagaz and other WD's

7. Dodge any incoming javelins

8. Keep on doing steps 1 and 3 but take notice that Hagaz will now do a special attack of 3 javelins 1 by 1 in a quick succesion, this however tires him and he cannot fight for a few seconds.
Use this time window to do 2 (3-4 If any sort of stun possible (Lightning armor)) strong attacks.

9. Dodge any incoming javelins

10. His Underground burrow will repeat twice unless you kill him quickly enough, follow step 6


Conclusion + Guide updates
I will improve the guide but the basics should be there. If you need any more help message me on steam or just use the comments and if you see a mistake (Most likely there is lots) or you have a suggestion on how to improve the guide, fire on.

May the loot drops be with you and your finishers feel great. Have fun :)


Guide Updates

In a few day's time Im going to update the guide again, making it more readable and with more sense. There will be mixed sections on
-Starting / Gear Tips / Ascending / And anything else I can fit in here
-Boss Tactics / MAYBE a breakdown of each mob with pictures and such if I got time
-Transcending / Endless Dungeon / PVP / Co-Op

so basically the first part will be the first guidelines to becoming better, then a bestiary of mobs and last but not least end game experience. Hope you like where I'm heading with this if not / or you have suggestions, plop 'em down in comments
26 Comments
crazylady 25 Feb, 2016 @ 2:18pm 
Would be helpful if this was updated....:steambored:
MysticCatalyst 1 Aug, 2015 @ 6:12am 
that Beast F'Taga -3- At first he was lvl 8 now he's lvl 11.... That possible?
clownboy 31 Jul, 2015 @ 2:05am 
You say not to rank up items, but how about the legacy items? Since I find myself constantly using them.
Zherne 20 Aug, 2014 @ 7:14am 
ionized bolt uprgaded fully and a good wpn with 7% dmg runes + fury spell can kill any boss without getting hit just combo attacking and stunning in a much easier way than this...
Cat 24 Jun, 2014 @ 4:40pm 
My only comment is that you can succeed with any faction. not just void. Learn to play the others and im sure you'll find them just as enjoyable.
The Void Knight 20 Jun, 2014 @ 10:12am 
Crimyr, Repairing equipments, whether Low or High grade, Takes the same amount of time, since the durability mechanic is the same for both. So It's a Win Win for both.
Cimyr 9 Jun, 2014 @ 1:59am 
Something to add, in The Sanctum you can use the Forge on the end of the pathway(Behind you as you spawn in) to repair your gear. I dont know if it takes longer with higher end gear but at the point Im at it only takes a minute or so to sit at the forge and fully repair my gear. At no cost mind you.
LoynisPrayerTips  [author] 6 Jun, 2014 @ 2:43pm 
Guys looks like I'm not going to improve the guide for another few days because I'm busy IRL etc. so, I'm sorry if the current guide is not helping you alot. Hang In there, I will improve it! :ghlol:
luizbl 6 Jun, 2014 @ 2:02pm 
Too late for me, Just found out.
You know, being not able to sell the gear you're using is just stupid. I got a very powerful weapon that broke, I spent all my souls repairing my gear and now I can't neither fix the weapon nor buy a cheaper sword, and have to deal with that huge ogre with the ritual knife (1 damage per strike = about 12 days to kill an imp). Being not able to delete or create another character is also just some dumb decision. I usually don't waste time with games like this one, it's very cool but I'm ready to drop it if I got stuck.
DivineDarkness{A} 2 Jun, 2014 @ 10:15am 
but other than that its a grate guide